Social sciences

Florian Mayer, a Mitacs Globalink intern who spent his summer at Ryerson University in Toronto, wants to figure out how cities and roads can be built to reduce traffic, while working to improve long-term health outcomes in the world’s busiest cities. Researching alongside Associate Professor Leila Farah, Florian examined how the urban environment affects public health and how planners can work with communities to improve it on a local level.

Led by Professor Pascale Tremblay in the university’s Department of Rehabilitation, the project has provided a unique research opportunity for Anne-Christine Bricaud, who travelled from France to spend the summer as a Mitacs Globalink research intern. She’s working with a team at Laval to determine the effects of group singing on communication and brain health, especially among senior citizens.

Anwesha Pathi is a student of Development Studies at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, but for 12 weeks this summer, she’s working with grad students, postdocs, and faculty at the Université de Montréal (UdeM), as a Mitacs Globalink research intern. Her project aims to identify and better understand the contextual factors around women’s decisions to seek health care following experiences such as sexual assault outside the domestic arena — subliminal tensions underlying the provision of ethically just and equity-driven health care become apparent.

Working under the direction of Professor Alexandre Lehmann, the Australian psychology major is using electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the brains of 20 volunteers to see how they react to different types of sounds.

Created by heating a mixture of sugar, lemon juice, and water, sugar pastes are then cooled to a putty-like consistency. The mixture is non-toxic and used at room temperature without requiring any special solvents for cleaning.

Ryerson University researcher Huiwen Goy is determined to bring back the music for Canadians with hearing loss through a Mitacs Elevate research fellowship with sister companies Phonak and Unitron Hearing.

In collaboration the Phonak and Unitron teams, Huiwen is investigating the psychology behind the perception of music and how it can be applied to a new generation of hearing aids.

Treefrog, based in Newmarket, Ontario, knows all about social media for businesses. It provides a variety of marketing services to clients, including ‘traditional’ social media strategy. But a series of ongoing conversations between Sean Stephens, Treefrog CEO, and Laurie Baker, then an anthropology PhD candidate at York University, sparked a shift in how the company approaches social media.

Ottawa’s branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), in partnership with the Champlain Local Health Integration Network, has launched a unique program called “Familiar Faces” to overcome this problem.

Since 2014, the initiative has increased communication between hospitals and community-based mental health organizations to identify the ER’s familiar faces, pinpoint where they need more support, and direct them to agencies that can help. In partnership with Mitacs Accelerate, the project has been able to take another important step: research and evaluation.

One approach to helping these issues that is gaining traction is participatory arts and culture activities made by and for members of Indigenous communities. By creating tools for storytelling and culture-sharing, researchers and community members are working together to empower Indigenous youth to explore their creative capacities and imagine possibilities for bright futures.